North Koreans are ‘being sold to European companies to work then stripped of pay in twisted bid to raise cash for Kim Jong-un’
However instead of ploughing the billions back into the economy the despot is more concerned with increasing his nuclear stockpile
NORTH Korean workers are being shipped overseas to raise cash for trigger-happy tyrant Kim Jong-un.
Signe Poulsen, in charge of the United Nations office in South Korea, said legions of workers are now being sent abroad to raise funds for their cash-strapped homeland.
But instead of getting paid in full, 80 per cent of what they earn is stripped from their wage packet and sent to Kim's government as a "voluntary loyalty" donation.
However, there are fears the money is not being ploughed back into the economy and is instead being used to invest in more nukes.
The UN official also revealed the North Korean labourers are made to adhere to the back-breaking hours and conditions they work at home.
She told : "We have interviewed a few North Koreans who have been employed as overseas labour and that later came to South Korea.
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"Salaries are inadequate, there are really tight restrictions on whether they can move and many of the same things that happen in North Korea continue to happen.
"So if you are a country and you're giving work to these North Korean workers, you need to make sure that they have the rights that are available to others in that country."
Slaves to the System, a project monitoring the practice led by Leiden University in the Netherlands, found workers were even being sent to countries withing the EU.
And its latest report, estimates 50,000 North Koreans were working overseas — netting up to $2.3 billion (£1.83bn) for the rogue state.